Sandworms of Dune - Brian Herbert [159]
Sheeana, who had never been afraid of the sandworms before, now hesitated, worried that in their wild state they might not grant safety to her or Leto. But the boy worked the controls, and the sealed door slid aside. Hot, dry air blew onto their faces. Leto waded out and up to his knees in the soft dunes, and Sheeana hurried after him.
When Leto raised his arms and shouted, all seven worms charged toward him like snorting predators, with the largest one—Monarch—at the fore. Sheeana could feel the hot wave of their anger, their need for destruction . . . but something told her that rage was not directed at either of them. The creatures rose up from the sand and towered over the two humans.
“The thinking machines are outside the ship,” Sheeana said to Leto. “Will the worms . . . will they fight for us?”
The boy looked forlorn. “They will follow my path if I lay it out for them, but I can’t see it yet myself!”
Looking at him, she wondered again if this boy could be the ultimate Kwisatz Haderach, the link in the chain that Omnius had overlooked. What if Paul Atreides was no more than a feint in the final duel between man and machine?
Leto shook himself, visibly bolstering his determination. “But the prior me, the God Emperor, had tremendous prescience. Maybe he foresaw this as well and prepared the beasts. I . . . trust them.”
At this, the worms dipped in unison, as if bowing. Leto swayed, and they swayed with him. For a moment the walls of the hold seemed to recede, and the sand dunes flowed out to eternity. The ceiling disappeared in a vertiginous haze of dust. Suddenly, everything snapped back into focus.
Leto caught his breath and called out, “The Golden Path is coming to meet me! It is time to release the worms—here, and now.”
Sheeana sensed the rightness of this and knew what to do. All systems were still programmed to obey her instructions. “The machines deactivated the weapons and engines, but I can still open the great cargo doors.”
She and Leto hurried to the controls in the hall, where she input the commands. Machinery hummed and strained. Then, with a loud clank and a bang, a gap appeared in the long-sealed walls. From the corridor, Sheeana and the boy watched the immense lower doors slide open, like clenched teeth being pried apart.
Tons of sand spilled out in a rushing stream and propelled the sandworms, like living battering rams, into the streets of the machine capital.
Prescience reveals no absolutes, only possibilities. The surest way to know exactly what the future holds is to experience it in real time.
—from “Conversations with Muad’Dib” by the
PRINCESS IRULAN
A duel makes no sense.” The Baron frowned as he looked around the cathedral chamber. “It is wasteful. Naturally, I am convinced my dear Paolo will defeat this upstart, but why not keep both Kwisatz Haderachs for yourself, Omnius?”
“I desire only the best one,” the evermind said.
“And we could not be certain of controlling two of them as they struggled for preeminence with their new powers,” Erasmus said.
“Whichever of you wins the duel will receive the ultraspice,” Omnius announced. “When the winner consumes it, I will have my true and final Kwisatz Haderach. I can then conclude this wasteful nonsense and begin my real work of remaking the universe.”
Chani kept one hand on Paul’s arm. “How do you know either of them is your Kwisatz Haderach?”
“You could be delusional,” Yueh said, and the boy Paolo shot him a glare.
“And why should I cooperate if I win?” Paul said, but the sickening echoes of recurring visions strangled his protest. He thought he knew what was going to happen, or some piece of it.
“Because we have faith.” The Baron, a paragon of unholiness, laughed at his own joke, but no one else did.
Paolo drew designs in the air with the tip of his gold-hilted knife. “I have the Emperor’s dagger! You were stabbed with it once.”
“That won’t happen again. This is